Baker Wetlands manager dismantles boardwalk he built as a boy scout

The Baker Wetlands boardwalk is stripped to its support beams as a crew dismantles it Monday, July 22, 2013. The boardwalk is being removed to make way for the completion of K-10. Boyd says much of the flooring of the boardwalk will be saved and reused on other boardwalk projects.

Roger Boyd, manager of the Baker Wetlands, straps boardwalk platform boards together as he and a small crew dismantle the boardwalk Monday, July 22, 2013. The boardwalk is being removed to make way for the completion of K-10. Much of the flooring of the boardwalk will be saved and reused on other boardwalk projects.

Jon Boyd, Refuge Manager for the Baker Wetlands, pulls nails from the wetlands boardwalk Monday, July 22, 2013. The boardwalk is being removed to make way for the completion of K-10. Boyd says much of the flooring of the boardwalk will be saved and reused on other boardwalk projects.

If you followed the sounds of drilling and pounding hammers near the north entrance to the Baker Wetlands on Monday, you’d quickly come upon the source of the noise. Jon Boyd, his father, Roger, and several others were dismantling one of the complex’s two boardwalks, which is being removed to make way for construction of the South Lawrence Trafficway.

For Jon Boyd, refuge manager of the Baker Wetlands, the monthlong process of breaking down the 850-foot walkway, board by board, is almost bittersweet.

That’s because Boyd planned and built most of the boardwalk to earn the rank of Eagle Scout at the unusually young age of 13.

“I was proud of it when I built it,” Boyd said. “It’s sentimental.”

It was the summer after he graduated eighth grade when Boyd, a then-member of Troop 65 out of Baldwin City, devoted three weeks to create the boardwalk.

He chose the project to fulfill his leadership requirement because his father was, and still is, director of the Baker Wetlands. The father and son worked together to establish a plan. Then Jon took over, directing volunteers who set the concrete piers and arranged the timber foundation.

For 21 years, the walkway, surrounded by trees and marshes, allowed visitors to more fully experience the wetlands, which consists of 573 acres of meadow, marshland, ponds and native grass located just south of Lawrence.

“We have a lot of people come out here,” Boyd said. “It gives people a chance to walk around and see nature.”

Soon after his project was completed, Boyd received his Eagle Scout designation. At the time, he assumed his creation would last.

‘The last hurdle’

Instead of bemoaning the fate of a past accomplishment, Boyd is forward-focused. He knows the deconstruction of the boardwalk is the final step toward a new era.

“It’s been here since ’92, so at that time the roadway project wasn’t that prominent,” Boyd explained. “After dealing with it for the last five or 10 years and seeing all the benefits that the trafficway would provide for Baker and the community, it’s not that sad.”

In the mitigation agreement between the Kansas Department of Transportation and Baker University that was released last year, the state promised 480 acres in exchange for 56 acres that will be lost to the trafficway.

Roger Boyd said 310 of the acres would be restored to wetlands. The rest of the area is upland prairie or riparian habitats.

The mitigation also includes the stipulation that the state cover the costs of building a new visitor center and provides funds to hire an education coordinator who will arrange field trips to the wetlands complex.

In addition, the state will set up an endowment to cover any maintenance, operations and administration costs that the wetlands may encounter.

“Hopefully that should be able to provide us with funds to go into the future and not ever have to fundraise or ask for grants,” Boyd said.

According to KDOT, construction on the final leg of the trafficway is set to begin in October. The other boardwalk, which is located near the restoration site at 1365 N. 1250 Road and was built in 2009, will remain available for use.

After they finish dismantling the boardwalk near the north gate later this week, Jon and Roger Boyd will be ready.

“We’ll come back and tear out the timbers, but beyond that, we’ve gotten most everything prepared for the roadway project to start,” Boyd said. “This is the last hurdle.”

Umm, I know you've only been alive for so long, but they were wetlands before some Europeans came and drained them to grow corn. Then they were allowed to go back to their natural state. Yes, it's true. The world existed before you were born, and even before your parents were born.

We aren't Dutch and we don't live near an ocean. And we aren't growing crops here. We are building a highway for several reasons. People don't like to slow down going through town. They are too cheap to take our bypass, otherwise known as the turnpike. The WalMart distribution center in Ottawa wants it, that's why they bought the politicians who created the 59 Highway that now bypasses Ottawa, but it will blend in perfectly with the bypass for their big trucks. And several influential people own land along the route that isn't part of the wetlands, and they need to build gas stations and strip malls and apartment buildings, because we just don't have enough of those. But I guess now they will finally put a traffic light at 31st and Louisiana, which would have helped a long time ago, but they had to make that intersection more miserable to gain support for the bypass.

The post I was replying to got deleted. He was trying to say that nobody would drain a wetland to grow crops. I was pointing out that far more difficult things to drain (and desalinate) are out there being farmed right now.

Everyone keeps using the term reconstructed wetlands as if that actually meant something. The only meaningful label is whether the wetlands represent a healthy ecosystem that is at least representative of pre-Colombian wetlands found in this area. The baker wetlands fit that bill. Expansion of the wetlands is a good thing and 50 years from now it will be a great thing. People should stop using artificial labels that mean more in a political context than a biological, historical or archeological sense.

Alligator Alley wasn't so much bulldozed as two canals were dug by excavators on barges, filling the space between the two canals with enough dirt to start a road. It's like 80 miles long and for 80 miles all you see is prairie and cypress stands. The canals are excellent for bass fishing and seeing alligators in the wild.

The single species I remember being most affected was the Florida panther, but they have rebuilt the road since to accommodate the wildlife.

let's see.....I witnessed over a decade of euro American denial of indigenous
religions and ties to the land. these wetlands are no different than the troyville
mound in Jonesville, LA, where I grew up that was pillaged and destroyed by pot hunters
just as spiro in Oklahoma was in the 1930's. It may be censored yet again
but there is a double standard in this country. those who profess Christian
values and yet trash the values of indigenous peoples and dress their scouts
up as Indians who are exalted as virtuous as long as their religious values
don't stop highways. This issue is not going away. It will now be put
up there with the kinzua dam in Pennsylvania which flooded the last
Seneca trust land in Pennsylvania known as the cornplanter tract
in the 1960's. it will be no different than all of the times people have
destroyed pictographs on BLM lands or the times that the Spanish
conquistadors and priests destroyed the kivas and cut off the hands of Pueblo
holymen before the Pueblo uprising of 1680. Indigenous peoples were
forced into assimilation at Haskell and forced to work the drained areas
to grow food to feed themselves as the federal government malnourished
them in the late 19th century. This country committed cultural genocide
at Haskell trying to kill the Indian and save the man as stated at the
entry gate at Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania in the 1880's
in those wetlands. I guess it's always okay to for a majority culture
to desecrate an area that reminds them of their sins. It's always
okay to have two sets of standards for White People and others.
Having gone through the EIS and SEIS processes over the years
this was very apparent to me. Censoring history is okay yes?
I only have ten books behind me in my home covering the tragedies
of the boarding school experience for indigenous peoples in this
country amongst the 400 or so books I own on Indigenous studies.
Reading They Call It Prairie Light or Boarding School Seasons
or Education for Extinction over the last decade or so expanded
me beyond the short sighted and manipulated outcome that is
being written about in this article. I visited the Brantford, Ontario,
Episcopal Mohawk Boarding School were many bones of murdered
Mohawk children were discovered buried on the school grounds some
years after I visited there in 2002-2003. A UN tribunal has investigated
this discovery. This destruction will be a black eye for years to come
in the Lawrence community.

The point is the wetlands were drained to grown corn, not that the wetlands were already corn fields. The wetlands that exist now are their natural state, or as close as you could get. I think most of us who understand history know this to be true and are tired of hearing about the stupid corn fields.

Obviously you are not a farmer. We do not exactly live in the wettest part of the country. In fact the first explorers considered this almost desert like. Yes, they would grow corn in a drained wetland. Corn needs lots of water. Farmers who own bottom land can grow corn there during regular years quite successfully. Only the extreme drought we've had for the last couple of years and times of flood are bad for growing corn in bottom land. Corn grown other places may need irrigation or just not produce as much.

The Concordia Sentinel: Columns: Destruction of The Great Mound
www.concordiasentinel.com/news.php?id=5 Cached
Destruction of The Great Mound. ... But it was Huey's bridge program that set into motion the destruction of The Great Mound in Jonesville, raised by the Troyville Indian Community.
in prehistoric times.
I saw the other side that is destruction as a young child. Jonesville does not
have the teaching and tourism site that is Poverty Point, Marksville, Natchez,
or the Winterville mounds because Huey Long put progress before cultural preservation
in 1930's just as roger boyd is doing now. My parents were able to go to the
Effigy Mounds in Iowa because no one sold out and destroyed that area.
I will never travel near the Haskell wetlands again because someone sees
fit to disturb and further the tragedy of that land and make it wounded,
I haven't seen that area since last October. The raping of that land is
too much for me to view.

"raping of that land"- the state has promised them 480 acres to replace the 56 acres they're taking, not to mention setting them up with a long-term feasibility plan. Your definition of rape and mine are two very different things.

The road will finally be completed, and the new wetlands will be great for the ducks. I thought I would not live long enough to see it finished, with all the years of roadblocks from the liberals. It is fortunate for the citizens of KS that this much needed road will happen. I hope they make it four lanes, as the two lane portion of K-10 is already overcrowded. Traffic comes to almost a standstill when some idiot driving 50 miles per hour backs up a half mile of people trying to get somewhere at the speed limit of 65 miles per hour. Law enforcement rarely cites these people for impeding the flow of traffic, which they are doing.

again Idaho ignore the millions of acres stolen by the federal government for you
to live on including 13 and half million acres in eastern Kansas between 1854
and 1871. tribes were growing large plots of crops for centuries. remember
the hapless and clueless colonists at Plymoth and Jamestown who couldn't
grow or hunt anything because of the class of people they were coming from
Europe Idaho? the us policy was let us take millions of acres and send
a couple of corrupt agents to rip off your treaty monies for the land stolen
and grow crops that were taken by grasshoppers, drought, and flood during
the 19th century. this process occurred many times in Kansas during the mid
19th century. quit playing the you're lazy card when the us government
did all of the heavy lifting ripping off tribes and selling off supposedly
surplus lands without consultation. it must be nice to have someone
to fix the wrongs in court.

What has happened to the Native Americans is no different than the worst of apartheid in South Africa. We still have Reservations. As a Catholic I am deeply ashamed of the actions of the Church in this country towards the natives that were encountered. I applaud the courage of the Hopi's in raising up and defending themselves and asserting their rights to worship as they please.

How sad! The building of the boardwalk was such a great thing to tie the interests of the city to the legacy of the Haskell Wetlands. So many people enjoyed being able to experience the culture of the Wetlands without getting their feet wet. I can't imagine why any reputable engineering firm would support the current plan to build a road there, much less without the support of Haskell Indian Nations University. To continue with this project as it is currently planned is unconscionable.

syliejr - there is another boardwalk that was built by the Boyds 3 years ago. It is longer and is in a much more diverse habitat than the original. It will easily replace what is being taken down for the SLT. I don't know what you are imagining is going to "happen" by building the road there that engineers should shy away from it? Wetlands are, unfortunately, built in all the time. Engineers know how to do it all too well. The negotiations that have developed the mitigation plan is well thought out and in the long run will vastly improve the Baker Wetlands. I don't know why you and others insist on believing what a few people from HINU say is true. In case you are unaware, HINU does not own the Baker Wetlands and therefore has no say in what happens there. Tuschie can spew all the viscous lies and half-truths he wants as well. The fact is the Baker Wetlands will still be intact as a natural, functioning wetland when construction is done. It will change just as everything does over time, and it will be better. It is sad that you and some others on this post will never understand that !

you will never understand how woefully uneducated you are about this country and it's
treatment of indigenous people and your actions are as offensive as pretty anything
that occurred in the 19th century. I usually do historical comparisons to open the eyes
of the willfully oblivious and that applies here. In another article on the LJWorld.com. site
the Bartlesville, Oklahoma based Delaware Tribe of Indians repurchased 87 acres
of land that was theirs to begin with from 1830 to 1867. Prior to the majority of that
tribe (excluding those who took US Citizenship and stayed in Kansas) had lands going
west of Topeka for a buffalo hunting area. The Manypenny Treaty of 1854 took
the buffalo hunting land away for settlers and left the Delaware with parts of
modern day Wyandotte, Leavenworth, Douglas, and Jefferson counties as their
reservation. The Delaware sold lands to the Wyandotte and Christian Munsee
Nations in the 1840's and 1850's that those tribes lost to White people quickly.
In 1860-61 the forerunner of the Union Pacific railroad convinced the Delaware
Tribe that letting the railroad go through their lands would benefit them. The
same was stated to the Citizen Band Potawatomi Nation between Topeka and
St. Marys, Kansas, by this railroad. By 1870 the majority of these two tribes
were removed to Indian Territory except for the Delaware who took citizenship
and the Citizen Band individually allotted lands and were mostly gone from
Kansas. There has been a resurgence of Citizen Band activity in Rossville
but the similarity is there. There is no difference between the Union Pacific
railroad and the SLT proponents. We'll make the land better if you Indians
get out of the way or just shut up. We're not going to pay attention to your
history anyway even if we could learn from our mistakes. What arrogance.

Tuschie said (among many other things...)"There is no difference between the Union Pacific railroad and the SLT proponents. We'll make the land better if you Indians get out of the way or just shut up. " The difference is that there is no tribe or even BIA that owns the land the road is to be built on. You preach about history. History can easily be changed to fit your wishes. You wish that Baker did not own the land. Baker does own the land. Therefore there is no need for "indians to shut up". Tuschie - you can rant and blabber all you want. I will even agree with you that the total of world events are conspiring against the American Indian. But in the end all the rest of us know that isn't true. Atrocities have been carried out against American Indians in the past, but the SLT is not an atrocity against any tribe or culture in the present day world.

what do you know about the many plants used by several indigenous groups that
led to lots of modern medicines being developed? what do you know about
the plants that the Kaw, Osage, Pawnee, Shawnee, Lenape, and other indigenous
people gathered in areas like the wetlands? do you know about aboriginal title?
why do you think that Delaware tribe purchased the land in North Lawrence?
One hundred and forty five years ago that land was theirs by an 1829 and 1854 treaty.
you know there are entities that are federal that can re examine the SLT process.
I consulted with one sending a long detailed e mail to Washington D.C. to them
yesterday. In closing what's the difference between a White historical site like
Black Jack and a site of indigenous cultural genocide and escape? you all will protect
Black Jack.

Tuschie - Yes, there are several dozen species of plants at the Baker Wetland that have been used by various Indian Tribes in the past, and some are still used today. But do you know that VERY few of those species occur in the path of the proposed roadway, and do you know that absolutely NONE of those plants are restricted to that path? I'm sure you do not as I doubt you could identify ANY of them yourself. Dr. Boyd always included information about using native plants in his classes as well as how to ID them. If there are any people interested in collecting those plants they will have even better opportunities after the SLT is constructed as the wetlands will be nearly double. I don't know why the Delaware purchased Pine's land but I can also assure you that I don't care. Yes, there are federal entities that can re-examine the SLT approval process but the only one that will have any impact on completing the SLT is the Supreme Court and that was stopped a year ago. So, Mike, send your lengthy letters, it is constitutional right, just like posting this superflous blog. Black Jack is of importance as it is an actual battle site. Cultural genocide - yes, it happened but not in the Baker Wetlands. Just because a few students tried to escape thru the wetlands hardly makes it the same as Devil's Tower or even Sequoya Hall.

you haven't read Boarding School Seasons by Brenda Childs about
going awol from boarding schools and the reasons for doing so have you?
I happen to know an 89 year old Haskell attendee who went awol from Haskell
in the 1930's. Some of her relatives went awol from the Flandreau School and hitchhiked
back to Kansas in the 1930's. You don't have any plans to
advocate roads through civil war battlefields or civil rights areas do you?

I grew up learning about plant life in wetlands along the Ouachita/
Black River and the Calcasieu River in Louisiana. I witnessed what White people
do to wetlands with clear cut cypress logging as I witnessed looking down from
bridges across the Calcasieu and English Bayou bridges between Moss
Bluff and Lake Charles, Louisiana, as a child years ago. The same can be said
for the many times I went through the Atchafalaya Basin as a child.
I also witnessed the damage to the Singing River and Pascagoula River
basins . Why should should environmental manipulators be trusted?
East of where I grew up in Louisiana the US Army Corps of Engineers diverted
Mississippi River flow away from the Atchafalaya River robbing the wetlands of
silt to keep land above the water level like what had occurred for millenia
and now the wetlands sink. Now the Houma Indians and other coastal tribes
like the Inupiat people in Alaska are becoming the first victims of manmade
land manipulation and climate change. When do you all stop?

This is a typical irrational and irrelevant response on your part. Tuschie. No, I have not read Brenda Childs book. I do not deny that students went AWOL. I do not deny they might have escaped through the wetlands. What I suggest is that an escape route used by a couple dozen or even hundreds, does not make it a battlefield not a sacred indigenous site. If it is then why didn't Bob Eye and/or David Praeger argue that in their lawsuit to stop the SLT? They didn't because they knew it wasn't a legitimate argument.

Your second paragraph is even more irrelevant than the first paragraph. What exactly does completing K-10 on the 32nd st alignment have to do with anything that was done in Louisiana or your growing up along several rivers there. Trust or not, completing K-10 will not divert silt flow from the wetlands and last I checked, it won't have any effect on the livelihoods of any local tribes...oh wait, there are no local tribes to effect !

You all were stopped with the relocation of the new US 59 4 lane highway.
You didn't get to destroy the indigenous places I witnessed that are still there.
You forget that the President of the United States doesn't really like the US
Supreme Court right? it's funny you bring up the US Supreme Court.
It's not that you would've won there. it's that they don't like American Indians
anyway. With the bias witnessed in cases like Nevada v. Hicks, City of Sherill
V. Oneida Indian Nation, Wagnon V. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, and the
recent ICWA case in South Carolina, by such non objective justices like
Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, your
case wouldn't even require facts anyway. Their bias makes history and
facts irrelevant just as bias in the SLT case made facts and history irrelevant
as your side mounted denial after denial in spite of all the organizations like
National Congress of American Indians and numerous federally recognized
Indian Tribes railed against this monstrosity of yours. Do you worry about
how clinical and heartless you appear towards indigenous issues and the wetlands?
you should. You've heard of social justice right??? How does a United Methodist
College get away with acting so offensively towards indigenous peoples with your
actions? How does Baker University have a statue of esteemed Osage Art Professor
Alice Ann Callahan in front of the Baker Library knowing that in her book In' Lon" Ska
about Osage customs she wrote of the injustices of Indian boarding schools and
forced assimilation and yet you all stick your heads in the sand when it comes to history.
Is always such a good idea to sound like a cold caluclated scientist?

you obviously ignore the fact that a great fighter of this road, Ms, Anna Wilson, Caddo/
Winnebago. spoke of how ineffective the sound barriers were to the people praying
in the wetlands. you obviously don't care about that either. Maybe if you read Ms. Child's book
you would have understanding of why your actions are so offensive but as a non
Native scientist why care what others think. Ignore the people and community you
offend and act as offensive as your ancestors did. In fifty years this road will be as
obsolete as the abandoned railroad right of way to the east of it but you will advocate
destruction anyway. pathetic.

Ms. Anna Wilson may be correct, but I would guess that the 12 ft noise wall will deflect more noise from the Medicine Wheel than no noise wall at all. I'm fairly certain that I would not be able to do anything or even suggest anything that would not offend you. The difference between us is that I am willing to tolerate and accept your issues. You, on the other hand, don't seem to be able to tolerate anyone who disagrees with you, which seems to be about 95% of the people who have an opinion.

Now you are just being petty so you can claim to be right!
Your definition of "local" is different than mine. To me "local" would mean that they are in Lawrence, or at least Douglas County. Get over yourself.

You complain that completing K-10 will bring more truck noise and litter to the Baker Wetlands. What I wonder is why that is of any concern to you? By your own admission, you never go there, why does it matter to you?

With a 12 ft noise wall the noise WILL be less whether you choose to believe it or not and I seriously doubt litter will be getting over the wall. But you go right ahead and keep coming up with irrelevant issues. The point being the road will be built and nobody really cares what you think anymore.

firstly I went there before you chose to destroy it so you can be thanked for that. I'd seen
the wetlands since the 1970's when I came to visit my grandparents in Baldwin City
from Louisiana. You probably don't care about the fact that people praying in the wetlands
will be disturbed and given less respect than people in a Christian church. People
in Washington D.C. at this moment care what I think and you should be worried about
that. For as much a crook as Richard M. Nixon was as a president he had enough
respect to return Blue Lake to the Taos Pueblo people in 1970 after it was taken
for a national park in 1970. You know a president can intervene in there's enough
of a miscarriage of justice just saying. your definition of local doesn't matter either.
The US Government's designation does matter. this isn't about agreeing with people
or not. it has do with race and the fact that there's a double standard with indigenous
sacred sites throughout this country. the act of denying indigenous history and
culture to further a road reeks of racism. if you acknowledged the importance
of sacred sites like the Ayres Rock in Australia and Macchu Pichu in Peru
or the Medicine Wheel in Wyoming it would be different. but you don't.
the reason the Haskell wetlands are sacred is because these wetlands
were the only place where students could go to escape Christianity
to be who they were....to be the people before they were given English
names.....to speak the languages that existed before English was beaten
into them. A century ago if I would've spoken "Halito, chim achukma?"
sa hochiffo ut Mike Fowe" or "Chahta imanumpa ish anumpuli hinla ho?"
I would've gotten soap in the mouth, beaten, or maybe put in the jail that
was on campus. do you have any idea why children went to the wetlands?
your guy brockington didn't have any idea about this either and yet the
rubber stampers bought his version of history without much substance.
You are so American to so little regard for the sins of your country that
you have no problem destroying an area where people went to escape
your culture. pathetic.

What is pathetic, Mr. Ford is your memory. I'm guessing you were born early-70's? So at the most you were less than 10 years old in "the 70's" when you claimed to have visited "the wetlands". According to the Boyd's there really wasn't anything recognizable as a wetlands back then. From the photos that Roger Boyd showed us in class it was posted "No Trespassing" by Haskell. After 1971 there was no access as the center road was closed. So, Mike, just exactly do you think you visited? I would be interested in knowing how you think the Boyd's destroyed the property? How will people be disturbed while praying in the wetlands once K-10 is completed? It will be much quieter in the Baker Wetlands after the road is done than it is now. Based on past actions, I know you are a person of no action, only threat. So, your threats of federal intervention of KDOT's actions are meaningless. I also know that based on your past actions, you will not attempt to answer my questions and modify your recollections. And for the record - Mr. Brockington is not "my guy".

I was eight years old when I saw the wetlands and what is funny is that I grew up around
wetlands most of my childhood. Louisiana is full of all kinds of different wetlands.
Having seen what wetlands look like in the dry season in Louisiana I knew even
if an area looked dry half of the year mother nature would make it wet and flooded
during other parts of the year. I have to congradulate you all for telling a lie the public
believed. Even those fields were wetlands. I've said this before but you don't learn
obviously. If one drives US 69 south past Trading Post, Kansas they will see wetlands
from the Marais Des Cygne River. I've seen both sides full of water to the highway before
and I've seen hay being baled in these wetlands during the dry time like my
wife and I saw a month ago going to Miami, OK and Rogers, Ark on US 69.
Lying and selling out. awesome. If you watched "Swamp People" on TV you'd
realize that there can be many feet difference between the water levels in the dry
season and the flooding in the spring. I witnessed this in the Atchafalaya Basin
as a child going to Pascagoula, MS, to my grandparents. It's a shame that
nature and indigenous peoples have to be the victims of how certain people
facilitated the lie about the fields not being wetlands. It worked for you all
for some time and I witnessed Dr. Boyd backing away from it at ECM when
he spoke then. Mr. Brockington is your guy. It was his nonsense that the
US Army Corps of Engineers believed because like I stated earlier you
all just want Indians and environmentalists out of the way of progress.
You should go be a pr person for Koch Industries.

I'm impressed! You actually addressed one of my questions. However, I don't believe for a minute that at 8 years old you went to visit "the wetlands". What I recall is that by 1971, 35th street was closed (locked gate). 31st street was newly constructed and there was no access from the north and the flood canal had been built on the west, both in 1971. What exactly brought you to the "wetlands" and where do you think you were, exactly?

You stated "Even those fields were wetlands." You believe this to be true because of a lack of understanding. You seem to confuse the difference between "wetlands" and "wet lands". The first being an ecological term that contains certain soil, hydrology, and hydric plants. So a crop field might have hydric soil and be periodically flooded - the fact is that crop fields normally don't flood every year and they don't contain hydric plants, therefore it does not conform to the scientific definition of "wetlands". Just because you believe otherwise does not make it right. If you don't agree then you are the one who should work as a PR person for Koch Industries and continue to deny that climate change is human caused.